Detective Robert Sirois

He currently works in cyber security. He recently moved to Florida but lived in Colorado Springs in 2020. In January 2020 he was a detective at the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office; he had been with them for 7 years.

Background

• One of his duties was going to the airport to gather surveillance from the rental car area.
• On the morning of January 29th 2020 he was assigned to look for video of Letecia’s rental car at the Colorado Springs Airport.
• Colorado Springs Police, assigned to the airport, assisted.
• Sirois went to the Avis rental car counter and spoke with the manager there.
• Avis has their own cameras at the counter; the manager worked on getting that footage for Sirois.
• The car was a white Kia Rio with Texas plates.
• Around 8:50 AM or 9 on January 28th, Letecia rented the car.
• Some of the footage shows her as well in the rental car area.
• He was familiar with Letecia’s description from being brief for the assignment.
• The manager gave him Letecia’s rental agreement.
• Efforts were made to locate the Tiguan; other detectives handled that.
• The airport was one location they may have been looking, some detectives searched the airport.
• While Sirois was there, an attendant says she was handed the keys to the vehicle about 10 minutes ago by the same person who was on the footage.
• She drove away in a white Jetta with another female.
• Sirois had no idea the car was returned or was going to be returned at the time.
• The Kia was parked in the short term parking area not the rental car return area.
• Sirois points out the defendant as the person he saw in the surveillance video.
• Permission to search the car was obtained from Avis via email.
• Photos of the Kia were taken; the doors were opened and more photos were taken; what could be seen visually was documented; gloves were put on and then he looked through the car.
• Exhibits 234 - 238 are photographs of the Kia Rio.
• E234 is a photo of the car in the short term parking.
• You can see other cars that have nothing to do with the investigation.
• There are signs at the airport that indicate long and short term parking and the rental car return.
• The rental return area does not require a ticket to park; short and long term parking do. There is a gate that stops you and you press a button to get a ticket. Less than an hour or so is free.
• E235 is a picture between the driver’s seat and the door down on the carpet in that gap.
• A short term parking ticket is down there.
• E236 is a photo of one side of the parking ticket.
• E237 is a photo of the back side of the parking ticket.
• The ticket is from January 28th 2020 at 4:41 PM. That’s the time the ticket was obtained at the gate.
• E238 is an evidence envelope.
• The ticket is inside.
• He explains what Cellebrite is.
• He has a fair amount of training in forensics including Cellebrite specific training and has done about 300 extractions.
• He explains the process of Cellebrite. He does a very good and understandable job “Cellebrite says hey phone give me all your pictures and the phone says okay here you go” etc.
• He did a Cellebrite extraction on Al Stauch’s iPhone.
• Exhibit 226 is an evidence envelope with a CD containing a Cellebrite report and photographs of Al Stauch’s cell phone.

Cross Examination

• He took DNA swabs from the trunk of the Kia, the steering wheel, the shifter, the internal driver door latch.
• It is unknown if the swabs were tested.
• There is a difference for doing a Cellebrite download if you have the phone’s password vs not having it.
• In most cases locked phones give less information than phones you know the pin or password of.